Screenland (Jul-Dec 1948)

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But you may keep the handsome frame as a gift for promptness. Limit2 to a customer. Originals returned. HOLLYWOOD FILM STUDIOS 7021 Santa Monica Blvd.. Dept. 507 Hollywood 38. Cal. The Powells have a house in Palm Springs, bought originally as a weekend place. It turned out that they lived in it three-fourths of the year, as Bill made most of his films in Summer. Since building restrictions were lifted, rooms have been added, but the house is still a small one. "We wish we had as simple a house in Beverly Hills," he confided. "After breakfast, Diana dashes off to the tennis courts, where she's rapidly becoming a good player; I retire to the sun-deck and read till late afternoon, when I join the group on the courts, sit on the sidelines and hiss. I can't play since my surgery, but the legend had grown up that I was practically a champion before that. Everyone listens to what I have to say, or else he's afraid to pick up a racquet while I'm around. They probably think nobody could talk so much tennis if he wasn't really good. I let them believe it. Between us, though, I was never that much of a marvel!" Reading is Bill's hobby. He doesn't read much fiction these days, but he devours books and magazines on current affairs. He doesn't care for biographies —they merely recount the past — his interest is in the future and what will happen next. He has an intense curiosity about everything, which, since he began doing "Mr. Peabody And The Mermaid," has focused somewhat on tropical fish. For years the Powell nickname has been "Willie Poo." You see it on his match-folders, cigarette boxes, small items in his dressing room. So when, on the first day of the new picture, Diana presented him with a snifter glass containing a miniature goldfish, he promptly christened the little creature, "Miss Oop." "She'd come to the side of her glass when I was having lunch," he explained. "I'd feed her as I ate. She'd open and shut her mouth, as if she were saying her name, and I found her wonderful company. But one night California weather went berserk; the thermometer forgot where it was and dipped below freezing.. My dressing room grew so cold that poor little Miss Oop gave up the ghost. I found her lying on her side, frozen, next morning. You can't imagine how much I missed her. Now, Diana has given me a big tank of tropical fish, two couples, beautifully colored, one dark scavenger and two snails. The dark fellow has drooping whiskers and a leer, he scoots along the bottom of the tank, sliding past the little castle, hiding in the sea grasses. He looks like the Senator, who was also a slippery cuss, so that's what I call him. Oh, they're great timewasters — but interesting! I mean to get books about them, see the head of the local aquarium, find out more. . ." The new telescope at Palomar intrigues Mr. Powell greatly; one of these days he intends to have a look at the universe through it. "I've viewed the moon and the stars through the instrument on Mt. Wilson, while an authority explained what I was seeing, and I was amazed at how fascinating I found it. My astronomy is none too reliable, so I mean to read more extensively before my Palomar trip." Bill doesn't play chess. It looks too profound, he says. Bridge is not for him: when he takes cards in hand, he wants to enjoy himself, and bridge partners take themselves too seriously. Poker and gin-rummy can be played without partners, and Bill likes to be on his own. Tennis and golf being out, he has surveyed other avenues of relaxation. Diana is taking painting lessons from John Vogel, with Anita Colby and other film celebrities, and is doing well with still life studies, but so far Bill hasn't joined in her hobby. Stranger things have happened though. There was the time when all Hollywood was engrossed in jigsaw puzzles. You couldn't enter a set without seeing a table or board laden with curiously shaped scraps. Bill sneered at the puzzle-fiends until he was bitten by the bug and spent all night fitting tiny pieces into a puzzle. Not so long ago, Bill had a reputation as a practical joker. I remember hours spent on mess hall tables, while sidewinder snakes, gathered from desert dunes in milk bottles by Bill and his pals, writhed on the ground, to be caught once more by the most agile actor; the hilarious night Bill danced Salome draped in a tablecloth; the toothpicks and salted olives I've found in my coffee after Bill's arrival at a commissary table . . . He's not like that any more. "Any tricks played at our house will be indulged in by Diana's friends," he asserted. "She fills the place with youth. You change your pace as you pass from one phase to another, but each phase is good at the time." He insists he's not too adventurous these days, but he says it with a grin. He was one of the party who made the first trip on the first Constellation, guest of Howard Hughes, across the country and back. He found that thrilling, though they broke no records, as he remembers. It's all Luck, some people say. It's entirely Fate, declare others. Who gets credit for Bill's continuing success? "I'm sure there's such a thing as Luck," Bill measured one of his "Willie Poo" folders against a cigarette, carefully. "Here's an example: When I was a very young actor, I played stock in Oregon. I played Joe Brooks in 'Paid In Full,' under the direction of Thomas Coffin Cooke, who had previously been connected with Wagenhals and Kemper, who produced the play on Broadway. It was a good part, I liked it, and Mr. Cooke told me it was my kind of role. " 'If I ever find a new play with a similar character, I'll put you on Broadway in it,' he promised me. 'We'd have a hit!' "That was nice; I was pleased; but I doubt if either of us expected it to come to anything. It must have been four or five years later, when I was pounding the New York pavements looking for work, that I met Mr. Cooke on the street, entirely by accident. He'd rejoined Wagenhals and Kemper, they had a new play called 'Spanish Love,' and were looking for a leading man. " 'What are you doing, Bill?' he asked. " 'Nothing,' I admitted, grimly. " 'Come on, let me show you to the boys!' he cried. He had me read the part, and I played it on Broadway for forty weeks before taking it on tour. After that, movie offers came in thick and fast. 58 SCHEENLAND